Mora, Pat
‘Mora Joy’: Pat Mora
“I wouldn’t be me without my books,” explains Pat Mora. “I’ve been a reader all my life.” The creator of “Children’s Day, Book Day”, or as it is known in Spanish “El día de los niños, el día de los libros,” is passionately devoted to sharing the bookjoy as widely as she can. Known by the name of Día, Pat urges people to remember this “is not just for Spanish speakers, it is a celebration of all children, culminating in April.” She wants them to be linked to bookjoy, “day by day, all year long.”
Pat grew up in a bilingual home but did not have the experience of coming to this country and not knowing the language. As a child, she went to the El Paso Public Library but, “to be candid, it was a time when you would never have seen a Latina staff member even though the community was heavily Latino.”
“My literacy work evolved in part because I’m Latina—I don’t know if it would have happened otherwise.” She thought about how many children did not have books in their homes. “I loved reading so much as a child that I wouldn’t want any child to be without that experience,” she explains. “I was talking with a little guy recently whose parents were native Spanish speakers. He was in fourth grade—that’s such a pivotal point in a child’s schooling—and I asked him if he read every night.” He told the author that he read some nights and she told him that he needed to read every night. She urged him, telling him “Being a good basketball player is wonderful but it’s not going to be essential. You need to be a good reader.”
Pat urges “Schools and libraries to consider services to our immigrant communities.” She remembers one mother confiding to her that “it is hard when she can’t find the word” and she just gets “quieter and quieter.”
She still vividly recalls a moment from her home library in El Paso many years ago. The librarian was taking children to a bookmobile and something registered as unusual with the younger Pat. And then she realized what was unusual—the staff member was Latino. The community was predominantly Latino but that was the first time she saw the population reflected in the library staff. Now Pat’s books can be bridges for immigrant families as they enjoy her books together in bilingual editions.
One of her recent bilingual books is The Remembering Day/Dia de los muertos, an imagined origin story for the holiday. Pat acknowledges that “I decided not to call it The Day of the Dead because the title might be offputting for a children’s book.” Pat likes to think about the ways schools can use this book to ask students who they want to remember and why. That understanding of how a book can be used in a variety of settings makes her work popular not just with kids but with parents and teachers as well.
Pat recalls a discussion with some teachers and librarians “and they were dispirited because they were test monitors and translators, and not invited to be part of a child’s education.” Too often, the very people who can make the most difference in a child’s education are marginalized. “I sense that so often teachers and librarians feel they are no longer invited to be creative as professionals.”
Pat Mora can tell if a school is successful within a few minutes of walking in the door. A first clue is if the principal is present. A second hint is if the students have prepared for her visit. She remembers a recent school visit when she saw art from her books the moment she walked into the building. The author was ushered into their cafeteria which doubled as the school’s auditorium. The front of the room was also decorated and the students shared her words with her in both English and Spanish and performed some of her poems. “It might have been a book fiesta,” she laughed. She marveled at the creativity of the students and the teachers.
Pat’s seemingly endless flow of books run from folklore to poetry to nonfiction. Water Rolls, Water Rises muses on the movement of water all over the world, “not in the sense of a geography lesson but water in mists, fogs, and rain, and how it moves to the sea,” though she is quick to point out that the backmatter provides even more information. Pat pauses and adds, “such a beautiful book” with a happy sigh. Meilo So’s illustrations do indeed capture the essence of water.
It’s clear that bookjoy is never very far from the creative energy that is Pat Mora.
Interviewed by Ellen Myrick, December 2015
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